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What’s it like to be the main character of an online scandal?<\/b><\/p>\n
That’s one of the questions raised in a new documentary about Lisa Manobal \u2013 one quarter of K-pop phenomenon Blackpink and a breakout star of TV show The White Lotus.<\/p>\n
The film captures an unfolding controversy, as leaked videos show Blackpink using racial slurs when they were teenage trainees in the K-pop system.<\/p>\n
The clips, which emerged last year, showed the band covering US rap songs during rehearsals. Explicit language, including the n-word, was left uncensored. <\/p>\n
The scandal blew up while Lisa was rehearsing for a pivotal performance at the Coachella Festival in 2025.<\/p>\n
Offended and upset, some fans demanded an apology – but the band’s record label, forbade the members from issuing a statement.<\/p>\n
With Lisa’s team in crisis mode, documentarian Sue Kim followed Lisa into her dressing room.<\/p>\n
“I said, ‘Look, I know this is new. I know you guys are wildly confused and hurt, but this is your time to say whatever you want to say – even if you’re just processing your thoughts and telling us what you’re feeling,” Kim tells the BBC.<\/p>\n
The film-maker “honestly expected her to say no”.<\/p>\n
Instead, Lisa lay down on a sofa and spoke from the heart.<\/p>\n
“It’s bad,” the singer says in the documentary, with a mixture of shame and nerves.<\/p>\n
Lisa explains she was “15 or 16” when the videos were shot and “didn’t know that [word] was sensitive because I’m from Thailand and my first language is not English”.<\/p>\n
Having only heard the term in rap music, she was unaware of its offensive history.<\/p>\n
“Now I would never ever do that because, now, I’ve got education,” she says. “Now I know better.<\/p>\n
“But I did wrong.”<\/p>\n
It is a vulnerable and human response – and nothing like the scripted PR apology you might expect. (Lisa has since apologised publicly, external<\/span><\/a> in an interview with Variety, although some people remained unconvinced, external<\/span><\/a>).<\/p>\n Kim says Lisa\u2019s in-the-moment reaction is “one of the most important scenes” in her documentary, Always Lalisa, which hits cinemas on Monday, 12 October.<\/p>\n “There was no premeditation on Lisa’s part, there was no media training,” she adds.<\/p>\n “I asked her one question and she just talked for an hour, and everything came out, and it’s all stream of consciousness.<\/p>\n “And what you see with Lisa in that moment is so genuine, it’s impossible not to feel compassion for her.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n